


narrativium

by hinotorihime



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 100 FICS YALL WE DID IT, Alternate Universe: Class Swap, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Trans Male Character, cleric hamid, fighter zolf, rogue grizzop, sorceress sasha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2020-01-07 05:21:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18403946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinotorihime/pseuds/hinotorihime
Summary: Inthisversion, Sasha Rackett grew up dreaming of the sky, Zolf Smith never got religion, and Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan went to temple instead of university. They still make things work, somehow.





	1. sasha

**Author's Note:**

> ↓↓↓ check out ross's oneshot [theseus' ship](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410975) for an alternate take on this idea!

All her life, Sasha has yearned for the sky.

When she was really little she didn’t even know what it was that bubbled in her blood, crackling inside her like the flickering of gaslamps along the streets of Other London. She ran and hid and played and fought with all the others, and at night she dreamed of rain.

She knew what rain was. Rain was sort of like when water dripped from a roof, except instead of a roof it was the sky. And she knew what the sky was, of course: the sky was a vast blue expanse of emptiness, and it held the sun (which was big and bright like a gaslamp but warmer) and people who saw it either thought it was beautiful or they thought it was terrifying. Sasha thought she would be one of the ones who thought it was beautiful. Other London was her home, but sometimes the weight of the city above her head pressed down until she thought she would suffocate.

 

It was Brock who came with her— of course it was; he was two years older than her and almost as curious, and honestly probably a little better than her with locks, and she was nine and wisp-thin and there was no way, he said, she was sneaking up to the surface without him. So they went together, through the tiny service door that everyone pretended not to know was there, and he helped her up the stairs in the dark. And the stairs ended in a dilapidated building, so they had a chance to nervously catch their breaths, and then Sasha stepped outside, and the sky was not blue.

She looked up, past the tall buildings, past the gaslamps, up until her neck hurt from craning, and Sasha saw the stars, blurry with falling rain.

It felt like a piece of something had settled into her soul and made everything fit, where it hadn’t before. The rain fell on her forehead and soaked her hair and Sasha laughed, a startled, joyful giggle.

“Brock,” she whispered; “Brock, look— isn’t it beautiful?”

A deep, distant rolling rumble echoed her laughter. She’d been told thunder sounded like the rolling of carts overhead or like the rushing of the Thames in vast caverns, and it turned out neither of those were right.

 _sasha_ , said the thunder, purring like a cat, as the sky lit up in a bright white flash that left pink spots all across her vision.

I’m here, she said silently. I came. Is this a storm?

Gods, you’re beautiful.

_sasha._

 

—Through the light and the heat she could hear Brock scream for her. She didn’t understand why he was screaming. The lightning curled itself around her, purring its thunder into her heartbeat; crackling, shuddering, stinging at her arms and hands and shoulders. She knew, lightheadedly, that the lightning wasn’t going to hurt her; it was just racing through her veins, making itself comfortable. It wanted to say hello to the storm inside her.

 

But you had best be careful, she told the lightning. My friend doesn’t have a storm in him. You’d hurt him, I think.

 _sasha,_ whispered the lightning.

 

She doesn’t actually remember how Brock got her back down to Other London. Just that the fizzing-stinging-crackling never really went away after that.

 

Sometimes, the fizzing-stinging-crackling bubbled up into her hands. She tried to hide it. Barrett noticed anyway. Barrett was always good at noticing things he could find a use for.

 

She kept being told the magic wanted to be used. Sasha wasn’t completely sure this was what it wanted to be used for. But after all— what did she know about magic? So she just practiced, and practiced, and practiced, and she never really got very good, because the storm inside her was basically her feelings, right? and Sasha had never been good with feelings. But she practiced, and practiced, and practiced, until she had a door inside with all the fear and the hatred and the uneasiness behind it, and she could open the door when she wanted and let it bleed into the storm and give it a direction. The fear makes walls and chains and shackles of ice and the hatred makes thunder and sparks.

(The rain comes when she’s happy. But then she’s very rarely that happy.)

The first time she killed someone with the lightning Barrett smiled with all of his teeth.

 

Brock vanished, and no one cared. No one would have cared about her, either, if it weren’t for the storm.

She practiced and practiced and practiced, made a door with her emotions and ruined her hearing calling thunder indoors, and in the end all it came to was this: Barrett only cared about things he could find a use for.

Sasha sat on her bed with a ball of lightning cupped in her hands and let it crackle confusedly around her tears.

“Sorry,” she said. “I‘ll miss you. Maybe I can let you out again sometime. But not— right now. You don’t deserve being used this way.” She paused, hardly daring to voice the next thought. “I don’t think— _I_ don’t like being used this way.”

Sasha is good at math, always has been, and this is the math she had done: she lets herself feel things because it feeds the storm. If the storm has nothing to feed it, she is useless.

Sasha cannot go against Barrett. He owns her. She cannot betray him. She doesn’t know how.

But she knows how to lock a door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you’re wondering, yes I have built the sheets for all the swapped classes. sasha is a storm sorcerer, bc Irony and also lightning.


	2. prologue i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasha goes to a party.

See, the first rule of stories is that there are some stories that always have to happen. The third son or the youngest daughter has to get their chance; the hidden heir to the throne has to return at some point; the plucky group of adventurers has to come together and stay together. It’s only the details that change.

In _this_ version, the main detail that changes is that Barrett doesn’t care as much. Sasha is very grateful for this. She likes running her shop more or less unmolested, and sometimes when she climbs onto the roof at night she tilts her head back to breathe in the high-up air and half-considers-- but no. He doesn’t not care _that_ much. She lets the rainy air of London fill her lungs, thick and humid like regret.

In this version, Sasha’s been hearing rumours for months about Thomas Edison’s secret auction. The entire community keeps an eye on Thomas Edison; the mechanics would give their eyeteeth and their firstborn children to get their hands on the man’s notes, and the... antiques dealers have gotten wind that he’s doing _something_ big, something fantastically unique, and are buzzing with speculation; and as Sasha’s skill set lies firmly in the intersection between the two she ends up hearing all of it. She’s been around long enough to immediately discount some of the more fantastic rumours, but what’s left is still enough to make her ears perk up like a mangy alley cat passing a fish stall.

“You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you,” Bi Ming accuses when she brings the gossip up. “I know that look. I’m _not_ bailing you out if you get arrested.”

“You won’t have to, because I don’t plan on getting arrested,” says Sasha, putting her feet on the table and swiping another sandwich from off his plate.

“Because you’re not planning to do anything worth getting arrested over? Or because you’re not planning to get caught?”

She shrugs. He sighs.

“ _Please_ don’t get yourself killed over Thomas Edison. He’s not worth it, you know.”

(Later, when she’s slowly coming to in the middle of a firestorm, she’ll remember this and make a silent apology. She’ll be making a lot of silent apologies to Bi Ming Gusset in the months to come. But this was always going to be bigger than her.)

* * *

 Sasha Rackett is a reckless woman, and she can afford to be reckless because she is very good. This is why her plan to get into Edison’s private auction consists of only three steps:

  1. Climb up the roof.
  2. Rappel down into the building.
  3. Find somewhere to change into fancy clothes and blend in with all the posh foreign guests.



Part 3 admittedly has a sub-section that mostly boils down to ‘pretend to be too posh and foreign to talk too much, which will hide how not-posh I actually am’. Still, it’s a solid plan, and the kind of thing she used to do quite a lot, and it turns out, frankly, that whoever is in charge of security for Thomas Edison is _terrible_ at it. Why, anyone could get in! she thinks indignantly as she coils up her rope.

It’s not like she’s going to complain, of course, but there are _standards_!

 

Zolf doesn't particularly  _like_ doing security for rich peoples' parties, but it's good work, and he owes Harringay a favour, so he's trying not to complain too much. He's very bored, though. Crowd control would probably have been better than this. He sighs and shifts from leg to leg. He's standing carefully out of the way, trying not to zone out by guessing what crimes everyone here has committed. The Japanese attache is probably funding a smuggling ring. The French ambassador looks like someone who doesn't tip waiters, which is a crime in Zolf's book; the Prime Minister's personal assistant is definitely embezzling. There's a halfling by the buffet table who's wearing the peacock cloak of Hera's clerics, so he  _probably_ hasn't done anything, but he's certainly got an arrogant tilt to his head that Zolf doesn't approve of.

A woman wanders past Zolf's corner, munching on a jelly doughnut with another two on her plate. He's not sure which group _she's_ with-- her features aren't Japanese, and he doesn't think the Chinese have sent a delegation, but he doubts she's English since every time someone tries to talk to her she gets an apologetic expression and makes hand gestures that very clearly mean _sorry, I don't speak that language_. Some diplomat, to not even have an interpreter-- as she brushes past him, he sees dark stains on her hands, and revises his initial impression. She's definitely a mechanic of some kind, which means she's here to see Edison's tech, not to schmooze. He keeps half an eye on her as she settles herself into a different, slightly darker corner and glances around before carefully licking the sugar off her fingers.

Fence, Zolf decides. She looks like someone who knows what things are worth. Hey, maybe she's part of the Japanese attache's smuggling ring.

She chokes on part of the doughnut. The mental image keeps him amused for a good hour while he ushers guests into the auditorium for the actual presentation.

 

The Simulacrum is-- _breathtaking._ Sasha leans forward in her seat, knowing her mouth is gaping open and not caring. It's _beautiful_ ; the most beautiful and entrancing thing she's ever seen. Her fingers itch to touch it-- to take it apart, bury her hands and face in its insides and find what makes it go. She doubts she's the only one. The greed in everyone else's faces is blinding.

( _The revelation had dripped like spiced honey into everyone's thoughts at once.  
_

_An automaton that can make more of itself._

_No wonder most of the British High Command is here. No wonder the diplomats are casting suspicious glances at one another. What could an army do with something like that?_ )

Edison is chuckling and rubbing his hands together. She ignores him. There's a sudden uneasiness buzzing in her hands and head and chest, like something scratching at a door, trying to get out. Like lightning trying to speak for the first time in years.

She tears her eyes away from the automaton, frowning.

 

Zolf sweeps his gaze across the audience, tuning out the auction. There's a movement in the corner of his eye.

 

One of the waiters. He's reaching into his pocket. Sasha knows the look of someone going for a weapon--

 

Zolf starts running.

 

She doesn't make the decision immediately. There is a pause, a breath, the hesitation of knowing what this will bring down on her. Maybe if there hadn't been things would have been different.

Instead, the bomb is already arcing toward the stage when Sasha stands, and shouts, and sends lightning streaking from her hands at the person who had thrown it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my hc sasha looks more or less like jing lusi but with a less pointed chin and eyes farther apart. and messier hair ofc
> 
> i hate bertie and have no interest in thinking about him long enough to fit him into the plot so he is not appearing in this fic


	3. prologue ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasha gets a job offer, Zolf gets upstaged, and Hamid gets pedantic.

Zolf pulls himself to his feet with ears ringing dully. It's hot, so hot his face feels stretched and cracking. He blinks to clear his vision: a wall of fire stretches out in front of him, oozing like melting butter from the stage and beginning to lick up the walls. There are bodies strewn across the remnants of chairs. The world feels vaguely tilted-- the ringing in his ears makes it hard to balance.

In the middle of the aisle he sees the wizard who'd thrown the lightning, her face pale and streaked with blood from a cut on her forehead. It takes him a second to place why she looks familiar-- it's the mechanic with the doughnuts. She's hiked up the hem of her dress and tied the long skirt around her waist, out of the way; she's wearing dark trousers underneath, and she's kicked her shoes off already. She turns to him, wiping the blood out of her eye.

"Where did the bomber go?" he shouts at her.

She frowns and shakes her head, pointing at her ear, which must be ringing even worse than his, since she was so close to the blast. Then she signs something at him. He doesn't recognize any of the signs she's using.

"Sorry," he shouts uselessly.

She makes a face and points at the stage. The Simulacrum is gone, and there's a huge hole where the floor is beginning to collapse.

He staggers over beside her and gestures to the bodies scattered around the room, at the fire. They need to help. Is it worth going after the bombers? He thinks he can see the one the wizard lightninged, motionless on the floor in the path of the fire.

She tilts her head for a second, then nods decisively and darts toward the hole. Well then. Zolf supposes that means he's supposed to stay and help while she goes after them.

 

_Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshitohshit._

Hamid is trying his absolute best not to cry, mostly by dint of shoving his fist into his mouth and biting down on it. The heat wicks the tears off his cheeks anyway. Underneath the terror, he's absolutely disgusted with himself. He's been _trained_ for this. He's supposed to _help_. He's not supposed to _freeze up_ like-- like-- but it's different, here, than it is in a hospital. Different from responder training under the older priests. There if he froze up or cried or vomited someone would notice and tell him there was something else to be done, would tell him _what_ to do.

There's no one to tell him what to do here. It's just him.

Everyone around him is dead.

He doesn't have _time_ for this.

" _Fuck,"_ he whispers, because Aziza always says swearing makes you feel better-- it doesn't-- and pulls himself upright, scrubbing his face and probably leaving ash all over it. Basic triage, this is _basic_ stuff. He knows how to do this. One person at a time.

Check breath and pulse, try to move them out of the path of the quickly spreading fire if they're still alive. There aren't many people still alive.

One of them is alive, and standing up, and looks relatively uninjured and also much bigger than Hamid. Hamid shouts at him.

"Help me! Over here!"

The dwarf doesn't seem to notice until Hamid starts waving his arms frantically, making the biggest motions he can. When he finally catches sight of Hamid through the smoke, he barely even waits for Hamid to make vague _help me drag them_ gestures before he's heading across the room toward him. Hamid thinks he might start crying again in relief, but they _really_ don't have time for that.

* * *

They end up standing outside watching blazing bits of building collapse-- well, Zolf does; the tiny cleric busies himself with checking the survivors for spinal injuries, shaking a bone-and-wire rattle over some of them and humming. Healing spells, probably; every time the beads click together it sends out a shimmering pulse of golden light. The cleric's face is starting to draw with exhaustion. His cloak is badly torn and there's ash smeared all over his skin.

Zolf's sure he doesn't look much better himself.

He recognizes a lot of the bodies. Even if he hadn't been watching them earlier, some of the most important people in the city were at the auction.

It's going to be chaos.

"Gods," he murmurs. "Preserve us, please. This is seven kinds of disaster."

"More like eight or nine," says Harringay grimly. The man looks like he's aged five years since Zolf last saw him this morning. "No trace of the arsonists, no trace of-- the thing they stole. And no one who saw where they went."

There, at least, is some good news Zolf can give him.

"Someone did. A woman-- wizard, I think, she set lightning on one of the bombers. I saw her follow them." He frowns. "I don't know who she was, though. Hopefully she comes back here?"

Harringay grunts as the cleric comes over to them, rubbing at his face with a dampened handkerchief.

"All the survivors are stable," he says, "and the ambulances are here. They're clearing a ward at Aphrodite." His voice, now that Zolf can hear it properly, is high, smooth and accented. Dark streaks of soot and what Zolf now realizes is eyeliner come off onto the handkerchief as he scrubs under his eyes.

"Good. Good. Thank you, uh--?"

"Hamid," says the cleric, folding up the handkerchief and tucking it back in his pocket. "Saleh Haroun al-Tahan, cleric of Hera." There's a touch of pride in the way he says _cleric_ that makes Zolf think he might not have been one for very long. Explains a few things, Zolf decides, and it's even more impressive that he managed to keep his head so well in there. I was a mess the first time I had to deal with a sudden crisis by myself.

Harringay seems decidedly less impressed. He grunts again. "Can your weird rattle tell us where the bombers are?"

Hamid looks at him coolly.

"It's a sistrum," he says. "And no. I specialize in healing, not divining, and anyway I'm just about out of spells for the day."

"'S okay."

All three men whip around. The mechanic-wizard is standing behind them, looking even more of a mess than Zolf does: she's ripped off the skirt of her dress entirely, and the trousers underneath probably aren't salvageable. It looks like she's been crawling through a gutter. She probably has, come to think of it.

She stares firmly at the ground as she says, "They're in Other London. There's a passage under a tailor shop. I didn't follow 'em in. Lost track." Her voice is a little too loud, as if she still can't hear herself very well. "But... they're there. It's lots easier to get in than to get out."

Harringay curses under his breath. "Just what I need. Gods. You! What's your name?"

She looks startled.

"Who's askin'?" she says.

"The _police chief_ ," Harringay growls. Her eyes widen a little.

"Sasha," she says.

"Sasha. Fine. You a wizard?"

She looks even more startled, extremely uncomfortable, and very suspicious.

"Don't give me that look," says Harringay. "Zolf here saw you blast one of the arsonists with a spell--"

"He didn't see nothing," Sasha says quickly.

"--thanks, by the way. We recovered the body, so we'll be searching it for any clues as to who they are."

Her mouth makes a little round _o_ of surprise.

"...alright then," she says finally. "So... I'm not. In trouble?"

"We've got plenty of trouble already," grumbles Harringay. " _Other London._ All of you, go-- do something else. Far away from me. Zolf, I'll talk to you later."

He stalks away, muttering.

Zolf tries to smile through the weariness. "Thanks. Sasha, you said?"

"Mm."

She's poking at the ground with her dirty bare toe.

"We'd have lost them completely without you."

"I know. That's why I went." She finally looks up. Her eyes are dark brown and stormy. "I wasn't gonna let them get away with stealing something that beautiful. And killing a bunch of people," she adds. It sounds like an afterthought.

"But you didn't follow them into Other London?"

Her lips tighten.

"You know _my_ name," she says. "What's _yours_?"

He decides to let her change the subject. "Zolf Smith." He holds out a hand. She hesitates before she shakes it. She's very thin; he can feel every bone in her wrist.

"Hamid," says Hamid, following suit with a blinding smile full of white teeth. Sasha shakes his hand, then huddles back in on herself. Silence descends for a few moments, broken only by distant shouting and the soft rumble of the last settling pieces of the house, as Zolf thinks through what he wants to say.

Finally, he settles on simply: "Are either of you looking for a job, by chance?"

Sasha eyes him suspiciously. Hamid looks more enthused. "What kind of job?" he asks.

"Adventuring," Zolf says. "Mercenary work. Pays pretty well, actually. Gold, glory, travel to distant places, and so on and so forth."

"Helping people?" says Hamid.

"Hopefully."

"I like that distant places bit," Sasha mutters under her breath.

Hamid is beaming. "As it happens, I _have_ been looking for something along those lines," he says. "I'd be very interested in discussing this with you."

Zolf nods. They both turn to Sasha.

She somehow contrives to look even more awkward and miserable than before.

"I've got a job," she says. It sounds more like an excuse than anything else-- like a child explaining to their teacher why they haven't got their homework. "I-- thanks? For the offer. I should go."

"Sasha," says Zolf. He tries to make his voice as kind as possible; it seems to work, because she stops and turns back.

"If you change your mind, I'm staying in number 304 on Hampton for the next week or so."

She nods, then flees.

"I like her," says Hamid. "I hope she does come back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ross: let hamid say fuck 2k19  
> me: you know what? valid


	4. prologue iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zolf is a good boss, Hamid is conspicuous and Sasha pulls a soccer mom.

She doesn't even bother going inside when she gets home. Just goes straight to the roof, huddles up in her torn, smokey clothes, scratching at her arms. The wind folds gently around her like a blanket.

I've got a job, she tells herself, a job I like and I'm good at.

A job they picked for you, whispers something that doesn't quite feel like her magic but still comes from behind the door. A shop they paid for.

They've left me alone so far, she argues.

And how long will that last now? They left you alone because you weren't useful to them anymore. You could be useful again.

She chews on her lip.

I could just lock the door again.

No. That won't work. El-- _she_ said it doesn't work like that.

Magic wants to be used. You could choose how to use it. You could help people, instead of being someone else's slave.

 _Distant places_. You don't have to stay here.

Those men seem decent enough. And they gave you the choice. That's more than Barrett ever did.

 

It's midnight when Zolf opens the door to find Sasha standing there, clean and looking extremely anxious.

"I changed my mind," she says.

"I'm glad you did," he says honestly. "Come in."

A hesitant, but genuine, half-smile breaks across her face like a sunrise.

* * *

 Sasha's a lot less pleased in the morning when she finds out what their first job is.

"I _can't_ go to Other London," she says desperately. "I _can't_. I can't go ba-- I can't go down there."

"It's the most obvious option," argues Hamid. "You were the one who tracked them this far in the first place."

She's shivering, Zolf realizes. The edge in her voice is panic, not anger. He puts a gentle hand on her shoulder-- even after only a few hours they've both figured out that touching Sasha has to be slow, and gentle, and obviously telegraphed, the same way you would move to touch an animal so that it knows what you're doing and can be ready for it.

(Except animals don't also send shocks of static through you if you touch them without warning. Sasha's comfort is important, but the sparks of lightning that tend to collect in her hair when she gets agitated are also definitely a factor here.)

"Sasha," he says. "If you're that uncomfortable-- we don't have to take the job. Harringay can find someone else. We've done plenty to help already."

She takes a deep breath, staring at the table.

"Hamid's right," she mumbles. "It makes the most sense."

"We don't have to take the job," Zolf stresses. "I'd rather you be okay. My duty as your boss is to you two, first and foremost."

She glances up. Her expression is unreadable.

"You mean that? You mean that, don't you?"

He nods solemnly.

She swallows. He still can't read what's going on in her face, but there's a lot of it.

"No. I'll go," she says, and her voice is mostly steady. "Neither of you knows your way around down there, do you? You'll need me."

* * *

 She doesn't need light to find her way down the stairs, even after all this time. The walls close in around her, dark folding inward like a house of cards.

Gods, she forgot how suffocating it is, to have an entire city between her and the sky.

Behind her, Hamid makes a soft, disgusted sound.

"It's _wet_ ," he whispers. "I just put my hand in it."

"Good," says Sasha tersely. "It'll get you dirtier. Be _quiet_."

That had been an argument and a half. No one in Other London wears nice armor or unscuffed boots. Zolf had simply nodded when she'd pointed that out, and gone to dig out some of his older, slightly more patched clothes. Hamid had not. Hamid, whose brightly colored cloak had been magically repaired and cleaned and whose chainmail was bleached delicate white and gilded-- fucking gilded!-- had _objected._ Strenuously.

"You're supposed to wear your god's colors so people know to go to you for help. How else are people going to know who I am?"

Sasha resisted the urge to rub her temples exhaustedly. "They're not _supposed_ to know who you are. We're trying _not_ to draw attention to ourselves. _White chainmail_ draws attention!"

"That's the po--"

"The wrong kind of attention! You'll stick out like-- like-- people will see you don't belong and that makes you a _target_!"

Hamid pouted. "I can't just leave it _off_! What if we get attacked?"

"If you wear white chainmail in Other London we _will_ be!"

Zolf came back out of his room and threw a grey cloak at Hamid's head. "At least switch the cloak out and cover the mail up. Sasha's right. We shouldn't be too obvious about being from above."

Damn straight she was right. "You should dirty your face up a bit, too," she added, a little spitefully. "No one down there's that clean. And for god's sake do something about your hair."

"My hair looks fine!"

"Yeah. That's the problem."

Hamid muttered something very uncomplimentary-sounding in Arabic. Sasha stopped resisting the urge to rub her temples exhaustedly.

 

"We should be just about at third level," she says now, pitching her voice low so it doesn't carry. "There'll be shit in front of the door probably. I think this staircase opens straight into the dry market."

She puts her hands on the wall, feeling for the catch, and carefully pries the damp, swollen wood loose. She's met with fabric, flickering light filtering through it, and a familiar cacophony of voices. Vendors are trying to out-shout each other, someone's yelling at their child, multiple babies are crying. The roar of the Thames in the distance echoes around the walls.

(For a moment-- just a moment-- Sasha's thirteen again, and the solid presence behind her is her cousin, and the thick, still air of Other London is home instead of choking.)

She wriggles into the gap between the tent and the wall. It smells strongly of roasted rat. The vendor has his back to her; she slips her hands behind her own back and signs _wait_. Then she slides around the side and strolls out in front of the stall.

"I'd like two rats, please," she says loudly. "On a stick, if you've got 'em."

Six coppers for two rats is _robbery_ and she says so, vehemently, and also that everyone knows rat-fed rats tend to stringy, and by the time the rat vendor's face has gone red with shouting she's not sure he'd notice if an actual elephant rampaged through his stall. Which, it turns out, is a good thing, since Zolf manages to knock something over trying to squeeze behind the tent and Hamid keeps making loud, dismayed squeaking noises when his cloak catches on things. There's one hairy moment, when Zolf pops out like a particularly stubborn cork, that has the vendor stopping mid-rant and moving to turn around--

"Organic?" Sasha practically screeches. "Those are _never_ organic-- I bet they ain't even rats!"

He puffs himself up. "How _dare_ you insinuate--"

She almost sags in relief. It's another agonizing half-minute before Zolf and Hamid are suitably far from the tent. Hamid gives her a cheerful thumbs-up.

"Fine," she says grudgingly. "I'll give you five-- and they'd better be hot."

The vendor sniffs. "After insulting me like that? You'll take 'em cold, and be thankful, missy."

She takes them lukewarm, and hands over the five coppers with something approaching good grace. It's actually quite good rat. She's picking bits of meat off one of the them with her fingernail as she heads over to the other two.

"That was really clever thinking, Sasha!" says Hamid, peering at her rat with his nose wrinkled dubiously. She shoves the other one at Zolf.

"You both fucking _suck_ at this," she mutters. "At this rate the only way we'll find out anything is through dumb luck."

Hamid raises an eyebrow. "Are you okay?" His voice is slightly-offended-but-trying-to-be-understanding and makes her want to punch him. "You seem. Stressed."

Stressed? Is that the word for this? _Fear, and confusion, and a staticky, restless impatience, and a sort of nebulous sense of protectiveness, all prickling beneath her skin, itching like fleas and making her stomach twist and jangle unpleasantly._

She looks down at her hands and suddenly realizes her fingers are trembling.

"I don't like it down here," she confesses. The rest of it--  isn't going into words very well. She's not sure how to explain the static, or the way her breath keeps catching when she sees motion out of the corner of her eye. She tries a weak smile instead. Hamid doesn't seem convinced.

"Well," says Zolf practically. "We'll be out sooner if we get going sooner. Where to?"

"Uh-- river end. That's where they do medicine and stuff. If we're looking for those fire flasks that's best bet, I think."

Hamid readjusts his cloak, still looking at her a little askance.

"Alright. Let's go there, then. And... I suppose we'll _try_ to not, uh. Suck so badly."

Sasha lets out a breath. "Look. Just-- If I can hear you, other people can definitely hear you, right?" She gestures at her ear. "And I'm not _that_ good at. Distracting people. So. Okay?"

Hamid carefully reaches up and pats her elbow. "Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may have noticed that in this au sasha is, in ross's words, 'less stabby more shouty'. a lot of that's the magic*, part of it's the changes to her backstory, and some of it is that she's been magically bottling up her stronger emotions for years and isn't used to dealing with them anymore. (one of many reasons she's having trouble articulating her anxiety, and taking it out on the boys instead.)
> 
> *sorcerers are, hilariously, Charisma-based. turns out that sasha with actual points in Charisma is _still_ terrible with people, but _even more stubborn_.


	5. prologue iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasha plays with fire, Hamid plays with knives, and Zolf plays anthropologist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: canon-typical violence; a character has a panic attack + dissociates

As far as Zolf can figure out, the tents down here function only as space-markers; the air is completely still in Other London, and the only light comes from the gaslamps that line the streets and ceiling. It's as claustrophobic as the hold of a ship, though admittedly quite a bit drier. ('River-end' seems to be more of an orienting direction than a descriptor. The faint echo that _might_ be the rumble of the Thames is barely any louder in this area, and the air no more humid.)

Sasha is bent over a shelf in one of the pavilions, cooing like a new mother over a set of glass bottles filled with liquid. "Hamid, look at this," she says. "It's got two chambers to keep the stuff from mixing, so when you break it it sets off! That's _brilliant_!"

"It really is," says Hamid earnestly. "I'm sure people must pay good money for things like this. It would be very useful."

The vendor still looks suspicious, but between Hamid's charm and Sasha's genuine enthusiasm they seem to have the interrogation well in hand. Zolf figures he'd probably be more hindrance than help here, so he stays leaning against the wall, trying to look casual, occasionally scanning the crowd. Most of the people down here look aggressively normal; there are a lot of small children running around without parents and with dirty faces, and young women chatting in corners holding bags. It looks surprisingly like most markets Zolf has been to, in other words, despite the strange half-light. And the ceiling.

He has been cataloguing the place, marking the skylessness in his mind. The ceiling stretching above them was the first thing he saw, vast iron girders mottled with rust as they support the weight of another city on top of this one.

Zolf swallows, trying to pinpoint the gentle current of uneasiness under his ribcage.

When he looks close, he can add to his catalogue the things that aren't like most markets. The spaces between the crumbling houses are dark, and the people, like the food they sell, are pale and small. He can hear the rise and fall of voices in the cadences of an accent like Sasha's, and distantly, the yipping of dogs. Rotting paper squishes underfoot, an dead urban imitation of leaf-mulch.

\--there. A flicker of movement: behind one of the stands, a lanky man with a scarred face is moving toward Hamid with his hand in his jacket. He's close enough Zolf can see the outline of the knife beneath it; the man's eyes are fixed on Sasha. His face is twisted into a grimace, or a sneer, and Zolf flicks his eyes to the side, knowing what he'll see.

Two more men approaching, each with a mangy hound loping at his side. They're bee-lining for Sasha and Hamid, neither of whom seem to have noticed.

Well. Fuck.

" _Hamid, look out!"_

Zolf surges forward, drawing his sword, at the same time that Sasha whips her head up and straightens with one of the fire-flasks clutched in her hand. Hamid fumbles for the staff slung across his back, but he's holding it too awkwardly-- Zolf realizes with a spike of annoyance and fear that the kid is trying to pull the cloth cover off the end-- and before he can readjust it the scarred man has his arm locked in a vise-like grip and the tip of a knife pressed against his throat.

"Put that down, Sasha," the man chides. "I'm pretty sure you didn't pay for that."

Sasha's fist clenches around the neck of the flask. "I didn't know you knew what 'pay for' means," she says. "I ain't never seen you with something you didn't steal."

There's a brief flash in the yellow lamplight, and Hamid gives a desperate, sobbing squeak. A trickle of blood runs down the knifeblade.

"Don't you sass me, little miss," says the man quietly. "You're the only one Barrett needs _alive_."

Slowly, Sasha sets the flask down on top of a shelf. (The vendor appears to be long-gone, clearly having decided that a fight next to explosive stock was not something she was willing to be anywhere near for long.) Zolf holds his sword ready, trying to think fast. The two goons standing behind the man are much taller than him, and much thicker than Sasha. And Hamid is--

\--well, while the man stared at Sasha, Hamid has been slowly, carefully adjusting his grip on his staff, and suddenly his captor gives a shout of surprise and pain as the butt of the staff drives down onto his foot. His grip only loosens for a second, but it's enough for Hamid to wriggle away and whirl to face him, pulling the cover off of what Zolf now realizes is a _blade_ on the other end of the staff.

He holds the glaive in a ready position. There are tear-tracks staining his dark face, but his lips are set in a firm line.

"You," he says, in a voice that only trembles a little, "do not seem like a pleasant person. Go away."

Zolf would laugh if he didn't have to keep an eye on Goon #1, who is trying to edge around the scarred man and push his dog forward. The dog growls at Hamid, who is so obviously not flinching that he might as well have flinched anyway.

The scarred man stares at Hamid for a second.

"A _pleasant person_?" It comes out as a disbelieving scoff. "Sasha, Sasha, what kind of friends have you been makin'?"

"Better ones 'n you," says Sasha. "You go tell Barrett I'm _not going back_."

Zolf decides that's his cue to bloody well shank the fuck out of Goon #1.

 

The fighting doesn't actually go too badly for the first bit-- the bit where Zolf stabs one of the creepy threatening men, and Sasha throws what's left of her roasted rat at the dogs and then snatches up the fire-flask again and breaks it over the head of the other creepy threatening man, and that leaves Hamid to face off against the scarred man that had tried to hold him hostage-- who is twice his height and seems vaguely surprised that they're fighting back. Hamid sticks the point of his glaive straight into the guy's thigh and is rewarded with a very satisfying yelp of pain.

The first thing that goes wrong is that one of the dogs isn't as distracted by cold roasted rat as they'd thought, and it takes a massive chunk out of Zolf's calf so that he staggers and limps and is bleeding all over the place. And there's just _so much blood_ , oozing out of his new boss's leg like a spilled cup of wine, that Hamid doesn't think-- it doesn't even occur to him to try to be subtle. He swallows down the nausea, and whispers a prayer, the fastest and least fancy prayer he's ever spoken. He should have watched closer, he will accuse himself later, and seen the way the scarred man's eyes narrowed when Zolf's wound miraculously began to knit itself together.

The second thing that goes wrong is that one of the goons tries to grab Sasha's arm.

Hamid could have told him that was a terrible idea, but the goon didn't _ask_. He grabs Sasha's bicep from behind and the second his fingers are on her there's a brilliant flash of blue-yellow light, so bright it leaves spots dancing across Hamid's vision. The goon screams and lets go, and Sasha wrenches herself away as he falls groaning to the ground. Sparks of lightning crackle across her hands and face, lighting her eyes up in the gloomy underground half-light.

He was wrong, before, when he thought she was the palest person he's ever seen. The blue tint of the lightning is sinking back into cheeks suddenly drained of even the hint of blood. Her eyes are blown wide with terror.

The scarred man starts laughing.

"Well doesn't _that_ explain a lot?" he sneers. "Little witch ran away, huh? Little liar?"

Sasha's breathing is harsh, almost metallic in its raspiness. "I c-can't control it, Ashen--"

The man-- Ashen-- only laughs harder.

"A couple days and we'll fix _that_ , now won't we?"

" _I'm not going back!_ " she shrieks, and at this point Hamid has recognized the familiar unhinging of a panic attack in the way she's standing.

"Leave her alone!" he snaps, slashing at Ashen's chest. Ashen steps aside without even taking his eyes off of Sasha. "She said she's not going with you! Leave us _alone_!"

Ashen kicks Hamid in the stomach and darts forward, faster than a snake, and Sasha gives a thin cry and collapses to her knees, gripping her side. Ashen twirls his bloodstained knife in one hand. There's blood leaking out between Sasha's fingers. It's sticky and virulent against her white, white skin.

" _Enough,_ " Ashen commands.

The goons have Zolf surrounded. Ashen points at Hamid with the knife.

"You. Healy boy. Fix her up. And _then_ you are all coming with me and there'll be no more heroics. Got it?"

Hamid nods, choking back the tears. Zolf is growling deep in his throat, but slowly, he puts his sword down on the ground and watches sullenly as one of the goons takes it. Ashen holds out his hand for Hamid's glaive. 

"Bit big for you, ain't it?"

Hamid ignores him and hurries over to Sasha. She's crumpled in on herself, tears streaming down her face, choking on her own ragged breathing. She almost looks like she's about to throw up, except for the terrible, distant blankness of her expression.

"Sasha," Hamid sobs, "Sasha, it's okay, I've got you--"

She shivers when he carefully, slowly, signalling every motion, covers her hands with his own tiny ones and presses down on her injured rib.

_My lady, Mother of the heavens, please-- close her wound and calm her mind._

The soft golden light sinks into the skin under her torn shirt. The blood stops. The tears don't.

"Sasha, come on," Hamid murmurs. "It's going to be okay."

Her unfocused eyes seem a little accusatory. It's very much not going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i hate writing fight scenes
> 
> there’s no religious significance to hamid’s glaive* i just really like glaives
> 
> *technically in 4e dnd Small characters can’t wield two-handed weapons, to which i say: it’s a _tiny_ glaive then god andy let me live a little


	6. prologue v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasha has a family reunion, Zolf has a staring contest, and Hamid has actual high society experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: implications of emotional and physical abuse. vomiting.

Barrett Rackett’s headquarters are in what was probably a government building before the flood: the roof is domed and there are marble columns in the front, and the brick has been carefully patched up. It’s very imposing in the dull gaslight. The street around it is more or less deserted, and Ashen and his goons have been talking and laughing loudly as they ushered Zolf and his companions through the narrow alleys.

Zolf glances at Sasha again. She’s still hovering behind him, not quite touching his shoulder, and she’s shivering. Hamid, tagging along next to her, looks like he’s about to cry.

“Buck up, Hamid,” Zolf murmurs. “It’ll be okay.”

“I’m not  _ scared _ ,” Hamid whispers back. “I’m worried about Sasha. I think she--”

“Get in,” says Ashen, pushing the large door open with a creak. Hamid hesitates, but Sasha doesn’t. She seems to be moving automatically, feet quiet in the massive foyer. As if this is a place she knows intimately well. 

“The office is upstairs,” says Ashen. Then, with a cruel smile, he adds, “Sasha can show you.”

She doesn’t respond. They ascend the stairs in silence.

The door to the office is open, and the man sitting behind the desk doesn’t even look up when he says, in a quiet, carrying voice:

“Sasha. So good to see you again. Do come in and shut the door.”

Zolf enters first, cutting in front of Sasha and planting himself solidly in front of the desk.

“So you’re Barrett?” he asks loudly. 

The man does look up then, staring at Zolf with an amused quirk to his lips. 

“I am. And who are you?”

His hair, salt-and-pepper and well-kempt, falls neatly over his face. He’s leaning back in his chair, radiating power as if he were wearing it like a coat. Barrett Rackett’s every motion is clearly meant to be intimidating.

“Zolf Smith,” says Zolf, refusing to be intimidated. 

“And Sasha, of course. Sasha, you know it’s only polite to introduce your companions. I know we taught you better than this.”

Sasha says, “He’s Hamid.” Zolf barely avoids wincing at how dead and dull her voice sounds. 

Barrett shifts his gaze to Hamid. “Do you have a surname?” 

Hamid stumbles a little. “Er-- Hamid Saleh-- Haroun al-Tahan. Of the Lydian temple of Hera.”

“I  _ see _ . Any relation to the Cairo Tahans?”

Hamid’s fist clenches. He says resignedly, “Yes.”

“Hm. Sit, please.”

Hamid doesn’t sit; he says with exaggerated politeness, “Are you going to introduce your-- associate, Mr Rackett?”

Zolf’s proud of him. 

Wait. Associate?

Hamid turns expectantly to the dark shadow in the corner, the one Zolf thought was a coat-rack or something. Oh gods. It’s a person. A person in a long black cloak, cowled hood shading their face so completely even the eyes don’t show.

Barrett’s smile gets just a little faker. “I’m sure we have more important things to discuss, Mr Tahan. I believe I told you you could sit.”

Hamid looks a little mulish, but he waits until Sasha has folded onto a chair, back ramrod-straight, and then he sits elegantly, clearly trying to inject confidence into his posture. Zolf remains standing. Barrett gives him a look; Zolf ignores it.

“Well?” he says. “What do you want?”

Barrett lets out a huff of breath. 

“First, I must thank you, I suppose, for returning my wayward niece.”

Zolf feels the hair on the back of his neck bristling at the man’s tone. He says as evenly as he can:

“We’re not  _ returning  _ her. Sasha is my employee.”

Barrett raises an eyebrow elegantly. “Employee?”

“Yes. I’m paying her to work for me. That’s usually what employment entails.”

Hamid shifts uncomfortably. Zolf continues to smile pleasantly.

Barrett looks at Sasha and says genially, “Is this true, Sasha?”

She raises her chin a tiny fraction and nods.

“Use your words, Sasha,” says Barrett. Sasha’s eyes flit to the corner of the desk, like she’s considering bolting.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Zolf’s. My boss now.” Her hands are white-knuckled tight on the hem of her shirt. “Signed—I signed a paper ‘n everything.”

“Hm,” says Barrett. He turns back to Zolf with a smile devoid of emotion. “And you have no intention of... releasing her. From her...  _ contract _ with you.”

Zolf matches his smile. Meets his eyes. Sends a prayer to Poseidon and Hera and Hermes. 

“I do not. Sasha has proven herself an extremely useful asset to my company, and has made it quite clear that she intends to continue doing so.”

Barrett drums his fingers on the desk. Sasha watches them, looking vaguely as if she’s going to be sick. 

“Yes. Sasha is a  _ very  _ useful asset, isn’t she? If not, perhaps, an especially  _ forthcoming _ one on... certain matters.”

Zolf has to stop himself from going for the sword he doesn’t have. Barrett keeps talking, eyes fixed on Sasha’s pale face. 

“A piece of advice for you, Mr Smith. My niece requires a firm hand, and quite a short leash, for optimum efficiency. She has a particular tendency, in my experience, to, ah, _withhold_ vital information from her superiors.”

Sasha flinches. It’s subtle, but if Zolf can catch it, he knows Barrett can. The man must know all of Sasha’s tells, anyway, and the terror bleeding off of her is weighing down the air like the roiling stench of something rotten.

The suicidal desire to just smash this bastard’s face in is getting more and more difficult to ignore. 

Sasha swallows and looks like she’s going to try to say something, but Hamid beats her to it.

“Mr Rackett?” he says politely. “I believe Mr Smith has made it clear that Sasha’s employment with him is not a matter for further discussion. Is there anything else that you wished to speak to us about? Or are we free to go?”

Gods, Zolf adores this kid. 

Hamid shoots him a swift look, one that says  _ getting Sasha out of here is our first priority; don’t antagonize him. _

_ Then you take the lead,  _ Zolf responds silently.

In the corner, the black-robed bodyguard has shifted positions almost imperceptibly, and Barrett has a sudden strange look on his face. A listening sort of look, as if he, too, is having a swift, wordless conversation.

“You are tracking a... particular item,” he says slowly. “A rather high-profile one. I can provide you with its location.”

“And what are you asking in return?” asks Hamid. “Surely you’re not a man who gives up valuable information out of mere generosity.”

Barrett’s eyes glitter. “Is it not enough that I would rather keep the Meritocrats out of my business? No? Then let us make a deal, Mr Hamid al-Tahan. The information you require, and a guarantee of safe passage through my territory, in exchange for a favor.”

Hamid bites his lip. 

“Any deal,” says Zolf impulsively, “also has to guarantee Sasha’s safety.”

Hamid glares at him. Sasha’s head snaps up and she makes the first facial expression he’s seen on her since Ashen stabbed her in the marketplace. It’s fear, and it’s confusion, and under all of that the tiniest flicker of hope.

She tamps it down quickly, but Zolf knows he’s doing the right thing.

“We’ll promise you a future favor  _ if  _ you promise not to come after Sasha.”

“I would never try to harm my niece,” murmurs Barrett. He’s also making a strange face. Zolf thinks that for the first time in this entire conversation, he’s caught the man off guard.

“Because she’s too valuable? Swear you won’t try to take her back, ever, or the deal’s off.”

Barrett regards Zolf with something akin to pity. “I find it amusing that you seem to think you have any negotiating power here.”

“We can do our own investigation if we have to. I’m willing to accept a  _ reasonable  _ debt to you. But Sasha is the price.”

He stares Barrett Rackett, the boss of at least six levels of Other London, the man who has goons upon goons and a creepy black-robed bodyguard at his side, who has them at his mercy, in the eye, and he doesn’t look away, because Zolf told Sasha that her comfort was important; because Zolf won’t let this slimy, rat-faced bottom-feeder win. Zolf stares Barrett down because Barrett is the boss of six levels of Other London but he won’t be the boss of Sasha. Because Zolf isn’t going to let Sasha go back to a home, a family, that makes her feel trapped. 

Barrett’s eyes flicker and he turns back to Hamid.

“Hamid,” he says, and all pretense of politeness is gone. “If I give your-- company my word not to attempt to reclaim Sasha against her will, you will take this ring, which will allow me to contact you, and you will listen favorably to my proposal when I do. This contract is no longer negotiable. You will walk out of this room with information, my good will, and the ring, or you will walk out of this room with none of those things.”

Sasha finally, finally speaks. 

“Don’t,” she whispers. “Hamid, don’t. It’s-- there’s a catch somewhere.”

“There’s always a catch,” says Hamid, far too calmly. “Give me the ring, Mr Rackett.”

Barrett smiles again.

“I’ll take the ring,” says Zolf abruptly. “I’m-- I’m the boss. It’s my responsibility.”

And as Barrett reaches across the table with a slim gold ring on his palm, and Hamid reaches out to take it, Zolf leans over and snatches it. It barely fits on his smallest finger, but he squeezes it on, and looks up and meets Barrett’s gaze again, and smiles with all his teeth.

“There ya go,” he says. 

“Zolf!” Hamid shouts, and Sasha looks three seconds from bursting into tears, but Zolf stands immovable.

“Now,” he says. “Give us that map, and we’ll be on our way, and you can have us out of your hair. I’m sure you’ve got a headache by now. We tend to do that to people.”

* * *

Ashen looks extremely disappointed with the apparent lack of murdering that Barrett did to them, and it’s with extremely ill grace that he hands their weapons back to them at the front door. Sasha sails outside with her head held higher than the roof of a Meritocratic residence, which might have actually done a good job of fooling Hamid if he didn’t already know that she’s holding herself together at this point with nothing but adrenaline and sheer relief.

Hamid follows her with a cold feeling in his stomach. The pleasantries had been wrapping up in Barrett’s office when the black-robed figure had swooped, far too like a vulture for Hamid’s comfort, over to Barrett’s shoulder and bowed its head as if to whisper something to him. Barrett had looked surprised, and then almost gleeful, and said to Sasha:  _ it seems I have a message for you.  _

“Is he gone? Is— there anyone watching?”

They’re outside, next to a wall. Zolf is clutching the piece of paper that will lead them to the Simulacrum in his left hand, the ring glinting on his smallest finger. He looks around and answers Sasha in a gentle voice.

“No.”

Sasha nods exhaustedly, sinks to her knees like whatever was holding her up has been yanked away, and starts retching.

Zolf crouches next to her and waits until she’s finished vomiting, until she’s wiping her mouth off with a trembling hand.

“So, is your uncle always like that?” he says casually. It startles a laugh out of her, highpitched and slightly hysterical.

“N-nah mate. Sometimes he’s worse.”

“That’s a pretty high bar,” Hamid mutters. He can’t stop thinking about Sasha’s face. Somehow, even after the pale dullness, the dead terror, the tears, it was worst by far to see her open-mouth stunned at a message he didn’t understand but had stopped her dead in her tracks.

Zolf takes her hand, now, to pull her upright, and Hamid thinks of her whirling, looking Barrett in the face for the first time.

_ How? Why? I have to find him-- _

_ I thought you didn’t want to be here any longer? _

**_Barrett!_ **

_ Get out,  _ he’d said, and closed the door in their faces, and Hamid thought the way Sasha crumpled then was worse then the way she’d crumpled under Ashen’s knife.

He can’t stop thinking about Sasha’s face. Somehow, even after the pale dullness, the dead terror, the tears, it was worst by far to see the naked, frantic hope twisted onto her mouth when Barrett had said:

_ Brock’s in Paris. It seems he’s very happy there. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god this was like pulling teeth to write. slimy rat man. stinky bastard uncle.  
> only one more chapter in this arc!


	7. prologue vi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zolf does a haymaker, Hamid does his best, and Sasha does an explosion. Twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: mention of corporal punishment for children. someone gets exploded through a wall.

The roar of the river echoes around the walls, soft spray collecting into a marsh on the bank. Sasha’s thin-soled boots sink into the mud. She can feel the left one leaking water slowly into her sock. 

“Back door’s barred from the inside,” she says. “I can’t pick that.”

“Zolf and I can’t sneak past the guards,” says Hamid. “After earlier I don’t think it would be a good idea to try. We’ll have to get round the back _somehow_.”

They all turn as one to the dilapidated church that squats by the riverbank. 

“Sasha,” says Zolf, “how’d you get into Edison’s place? Because I know you didn’t use the door.”

“Rappelled in through a skylight,” says Sasha promptly, and without a trace of shame.

“Think you can manage it again?”

She gives him a Look.

“I may not be a _proper_ rogue,” she starts.

“That’s not what I meant! I meant it’s been a long day and we’re all tired!”

She makes a face. “Fine. I’ll go in through a window and get the door open for you. If I get killed I’m blaming you.”

Zolf runs a hand down his face.

“I know you can take care of yourself, Sasha,” he says.

“I’m a _mage_. We’re _squishy_.”

And with that parting shot, she starts squelching her way back around the mansion.

She ends up not even needing her grappling hook-- the walls are so pitted with water damage that she can just climb up hand-and-foot. She’s picked a dark window, and there’s a hairy moment where she almost drops her lockpicks trying to jimmy it open, but eventually she’s swinging her legs over the sill and dropping softly to the ground.

The inside of the church is in much better repair than the outside. They’ve probably left it shitty on purpose, to deflect attention. That’s what Sasha would do, if she had an entire secret base for her murder-gang of arsonists. She pads out into the hallway, easing lightning into the tips of her fingers. 

“What the _fuck_?” says someone behind her. 

Sasha throws a spark in the direction of the voice and starts sprinting down the hallway.

 

“Do you really think she’ll be okay in there? I can’t hear anything.”

“We both saw her get through the window, Hamid. She’ll be out in two minutes, tops.”

“But what if she’s not?”

“Then we’ll do our plan B. Break down the door and rescue her. Stop _worrying_ so much.”

 

“Ow!  Oh my gods what _was_ that?!”

“There’s someone in here! Guy! Where’s Guy?”

Sasha doesn’t bother with the stairs; she takes the banister instead, which means she ends up at the bottom at the same time that someone comes running around the downstairs corner, drawing a sword. Sasha kicks them in the face, then loses her balance and trips down onto her knee with a hiss of pain as a good chunk of skin rips off from the impact. She’s more annoyed at the loss of time than anything; by the time she’s on her feet again the other two from upstairs have caught up with her, which was _exactly_ what she was trying to avoid by sliding down the banister in the _first_ place.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” says one of them, which in balance is not the smartest thing to say in this sort of situation.

“Oh, fuck _off_ ,” says Sasha impatiently, and stamps her foot, letting her frustration bubble down into the dark wood of the floorboards, trying to push it toward these idiots who are getting in her way. It crystallizes cold and races toward the men, fast as a heartbeat, crackling and expanding in the cracks between the floorboards. 

They stop moving toward her. They do keep shouting, which is still pretty annoying, actually.

“Ow! What the hell? Is that _ice_ ? Is this _ice_?!! How did you--”

Sasha examines their feet, which are now neatly frozen to the floor, one in what looks like a _very_ uncomfortable position.

“Huh,” she says. “I didn’t think that was gonna work. You guys _stay_ there, and _stop_ yelling or I’ll freeze your mouths shut too.”

“How uncouth.”

Ah bollocks, thinks Sasha, and turns around with her hands crackling and sparking.

“I bet you’re Guy,” she says to the person standing between her and the door, who is dressed in a disgustingly nice coat and has their long hair carefully queued back. “That’s a really stupid-looking mustache.”

Guy’s smug expression doesn’t change. “And you must be the wizard Carl told me about. The _lightning lady_.”

“Are you the one that stole the Simulacrum?” Sasha demands.

Their eyes glitter.

“Stealing is such an ugly word,” they purr. “Shall we say... made an _unrefusable_ bid for?”

“Oh my gods,” says Sasha with horror. “You’re not from down here. You’re-- you’re _rich_.”

Guy laughs, and it’s false and tinkling in the humid air.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”

“I’m not wasting my time doin’ clever banter with you. You’re an _asshole_ ,” Sasha says, and the air around her explodes with a deafening crack of thunder.

 

“Do you think she’s okay?”

Zolf says doubtfully, “It _has_ been longer than we--”

_BOOM._

One of the windows blows out, showering the gloom with jewel-like bits of coloured glass. They sparkle rather becomingly in the blue-white flashes of lightning arcing in the window-hole. The thunder, as it fades, is replaced by masculine shouts of fear and surprise, and a high, thin screech of rage that is probably not Sasha.

Hamid and Zolf look at each other.

“You know what, Hamid? I think she’s probably doing fine.”

* * *

“Do we even know what we’re looking for?” asks Hamid. Sasha, who is going through someone’s bag with practiced motions, shrugs. 

“Anything important, I guess. I don’t think they’re keeping the Simulacrum in here. Not enough _space_. That thing was like ten feet tall. You saw it, right?”

“Yes, Sasha. I saw it,” says Hamid patiently. Sasha sighs wistfully.

“Gods, that thing was beautiful. Wish I’d gotten a closer look before it got blown up. Ooh, what’s this?”

‘This’ turns out to be a set of small, heavily embroidered cloth bags, packed respectively full of dried herbs, flakes of metal, ashy powder, and various unidentifiable... organic... things. Sasha dumps _that_ one out on the floor, and puts the rest of them in her pack.

“Sasha,” scolds Hamid. “We’re supposed to be looking for _evidence_.”

“It is evidence! Evidence someone here’s a magic-user. Anyway, they’re pretty. And component pouches are expensive.”

“Sasha.”

She sticks her tongue out at him and goes back to rummaging. Hamid sighs and opens the third box from the pile in the corner.

It’s mostly full of more random junk, but there’s a very nice leather-bound book sitting on top, so he picks it up and absently thumbs through it. Then stops. Flips through it again more carefully. 

“Sasha,” he murmurs.

Sasha jumps guiltily, whipping something behind her back. “What gold?” she says.

“What? What do you mean ‘what gold’, why do you have-- never mind. I think I found Something Important.”

She abandons a clearly full wallet to swoop down and look over his shoulder. He shows her the page that had caught his attention: a detailed sketch of the Simulacrum, neatly labeled. 

“You’re a mechanic, right? Could you build a new one from this?”

She hums quietly. “ _I_ couldn’t. But if there’s a parts list in this notebook too... I bet there are people who could.”

“Why is it here?”

Sasha bites her lip. “Guy. I dunno how they got hold of it but I bet they’re planning to sell it somewhere. Might even have a buyer already. Everyone knew what Edison was doing was big. Fuck them,” she adds. “That coat’s worth more than my shop, there’s no way they need this much more fucking money.”

Hamid knows his way around good fabrics. Guy’s coat probably isn’t _actually_ worth as much as Sasha’s shop, but it’s a near thing. Whoever they are, they’re dripping with money. They probably have money in a Tahan bank. 

“There are plenty of reasons they might want more money,” he points out. “Debts are a thing. My b-- I know someone who racked up so much in gambling debts he had to get a-- you probably don’t care about the details, actually.”

“You’re right,” says Sasha. “I don’t care. I know about rich people like this. They don’t care who gets hurt or killed just so they can get what they want. It’s like a little kid throwing a fit, except no one punishes them. So they keep doing it. And people die, and they don’t care. ‘Cause ordinary people don’t _count._ ”

Hamid slams the notebook shut a little harder than he means to. “Let’s take this down to Zolf. I think this is probably what we need from up here.”

Sasha tosses the wallet into her pack, on top of the component pouches. “Cool,” she says. “There’s a shed outside I want to check out. If they still have any bits of the Simulacrum left that’s probably where they are.”

Hamid debates the merits of getting into yet another fight with a woman he’s technically only known for about 24 hours, and decides against it. “Alright. I’ll let Zolf know.”

So they separate at the landing, and Sasha heads outside, and Hamid heads down to the nave, where Guy is unconscious and Zolf looks suspiciously innocent.

“I’m surrounded by _heathens_ ,” Hamid complains. “Does England not believe in due process, or something?”

“They were being annoying,” says Zolf calmly. “And it shut the others up too, which is a good bonus.”

The three men, de-iced and tied up on the floor, all nod vigorously. Hamid sighs.

“How are we getting them back up to London? You can probably lift one, and Sasha can maybe lift one, and I definitely can’t lift any. Can we trust them to walk?”

“I was thinking we only really need the ringleader. The others were probably just hired from down here. And I... don’t really want to bring the police down on Other London. They have enough problems without a rich Upper-Londoner trying to let them take the fall.”

“They helped _kill_ people,” says Hamid. “We can’t just let them _go_.”

“Then what do you suggest, Hamid?” Zolf doesn’t sound angry, just tired. “Bringing police down here will set off more than I think either of us are prepared to handle. That’s _why_ we’re the ones doing this, remember? We’re supposed to deal with this discreetly.”

Hamid opens his mouth and draws in a breath, and that’s when their conversation is interrupted, for the second time that day, by the sound of an explosion, and a brief, startled scream. He recognizes the voice this time.

“Sasha!” he shouts. Turns on the captured men. “What did you do? What was in that shed?”

One of them gabbles, “Just gunpowder! I mean-- a lot of gunpowder but--”

“Shit,” says Hamid, going white. 

Zolf has grabbed his sword. “Hamid, was Sasha in there?”

“Yes! She said she was going to check it out! I came down to tell you!”

“ _Fuck_!” 

“I’ll go! You’ve got to stay here with them-- I’ll heal her if she’s hurt-- dammit, here, take this--” He tosses Zolf the notebook and scurries outside without waiting for a reaction.

The rubble of the shed is still smoking a little. He falls to his knees, trying his best and failing not to panic.

“Sasha! Sasha!”

He scrabbles at the wreckage until by sheer luck he touches skin. She’s not actually buried-- there’s just one piece of wood on top of her chest, which is bad enough--but she’s covered in dust, and ash, and in the perpetual gloom he hadn’t been able to make her out at first. She’s still breathing, at least. He shoves the wood off of her and yanks his sistrum out of his belt one-handed. 

It takes two _channel divinity_ s before she wakes up, groaning and wincing.

“Whaaaa’...” she says eloquently.

“Oh my gods you’re okay!” Hamid squeaks, and hugs her.

“Ow! There’s... ugh, hurts, that hurts. Fuck off.”

“You got burned pretty badly,” he says, sounding contrite. “It’ll probably scar. I’m sorry.”

She tries for a casual shrug, which turns into another wince as the reddened skin on her shoulder stretches. “Shit happens. My fault, really. Shoulda... ow. Shoulda noticed it was booby-trapped.” Her smile looks more like a grimace. “This is why you need a real rogue, you know.” 

Hamid tries to help her up out of the rubble, although given the size difference it’s more like useless fussing while she braces herself on what’s left of the wall.

“People are definitely going to notice that, aren’t they?” he mentions. “Two giant explosions in an hour?”

“Oh yeah,” says Sasha, still sounding preoccupied. “Probably a mob on their way right now. Pitchforks and everything.”

“Haha.”

“What?”

“That’s pretty funny. The pitchfork thing.”

She squints at him. “Wasn’t supposed to be. We should get Zolf and that notebook and get out of here, uh... really, really soon.”

* * *

This is how they eventually make it out of Other London: with a lot of cursing (from Zolf), fussing (from Hamid), muttered threats (from Sasha), and muffled protests (from Guy). 

“Who saw you bring her up here?” says Harringay, looking very, very tired. Sasha and Zolf look at each other sheepishly.

“Most of the Other London market area,” says Sasha.

“And a good portion of the street outside the station,” says Zolf. “What do you mean, ‘her’?”

“May I _talk_ now?” says Guy. 

“No,” says Zolf. “Hamid, put the gag back in.”

“Did you really think that _awful_ mustache was going to keep people from recognizing you?” says Harringay. “Zolf, this is Augusta Gordon.”

Zolf stares blankly. Hamid says, “Oh, dear.”

Sasha swipes another mint off the bowl on Harringay’s desk.

“Lord Byron’s sister,” Harringay clarifies. Guy makes a disgusted sound through the gag.

Zolf shoots Guy a look. “Is that about being _Byron’s_ sister? Or about being Byron’s _sister_?”

Guy motions at the gag. Hamid sighs and takes it out again. It’s starting to get saturated with spit.

“I don’t care what you call me,” she says. “Guy was-- convenient. And my brother is a good-for-nothing who’s wasting his life while I have to sit quietly and pretend I’m not _twice_ the-- the genius he is! Sitting on his fat, drunk bottom writing _poetry_ , when some of us have something to _show_ the world!”

“So you blew up a party?” says Sasha, throwing a mint up in the air underhand, like a knucklebone, catching it neatly in her other hand. “Anyone could do that. _I_ could’ve done that.”

“You know he survived, right?” says Hamid, cruelly casual. “I helped get him in the ambulance myself. He was pretty drunk, but definitely alive. I doubt he was more than bruised, really.”

Augusta’s face is crimson with rage.

“You know what?” Sasha continues coldly. “I don’t see much genius here. All _I_ see is a spoilt little rich kid, throwing a tantrum about not getting what they want. You know what happened when I was a kid and I threw a tantrum? I got fucking _spanked_. But I guess rich people don’t spank their kids.”

“Is there anything else you need, Harringay?” Zolf says, more out of spite than out of any real desire to calm the situation. Augusta looks ready to lunge forward and try to claw Sasha’s eyes out, which is a sight he’d honestly love to see, but he’s also very, _very_ tired.

Harringay has his face in his hands and might be either laughing or crying. “No,” he says. “Here’s your pay. Please leave.”

Hamid puts the gag back in.

 

“So,” says Sasha.

“So,” agrees Zolf.

They’re standing outside the station, and Sasha is fiddling with a bunch of tiny bags she’s picked up somewhere, and Zolf really just wants to go to his shitty rented room and pass out. Hamid looks like _he’s_ falling asleep on his feet. 

“Um,” says Sasha. “I was. Thinking. I dunno where you’re living, Hamid, but I was thinking if we’re going to stay.... like. Stay together?”

She looks at Zolf nervously. He does his best to look encouraging.

“Of course we’ll stay together. I made you fill out all that paperwork, didn’t I?”

She laughs a little.

“Yeah. Uh. So. I was thinking... your place’s pretty little? I’ve got more space. If we want to meet up there tomorrow.”

He blinks. “Yes, that’s... that would be great.”

Hamid stirs. “I’m staying at the guest rooms at the temple of Hera,” he says. “How close is your house, Sasha?”

She purses her lips. “Pretty far from the temple district, I think. It’s just an apartment over my shop.”

“Oh.”

Zolf is going to tear his beard out if he has to deal with many more of these awkward silences.

“I’vegotaguestroom. Ifyouwant.”

“Oh!” says Hamid again, sounding more awake, and pleasantly surprised. “I’m-- I mean, if you’re sure it wouldn’t be an imposition.”

“Wouldn’t’ve offered then,” she says, in that same rushed, jerky way. “Um, Zolf you too?”

“Rent’s expensive,” he says honestly. “I’m glad to take your couch if you’re offering.”

She nods, looking like she’s just gotten word that her execution has been postponed.

“It’s not-- not big. That much bigger. Um, and I’ll have to straighten up a bit cause there’s tons of my shit all over. But...”

“Do you want to come to the temple with me while I get my things?” Hamid offers, taking pity on her. 

“We can meet back here and you can show us to your place,”says Zolf. 

She nods again, more vigorously this time. 

“But I’m not carrying any of it,” she adds.

* * *

 “The guest wing is right through the gate,” Hamid explains, “so we can just run right in from here and be out in five minutes. I’ve only got a few bags, it’s like five or six, so we should-- Sasha?”

Sasha has stopped at the base of the statue in the courtyard, staring up at the 12 feet of painted marble that form the goddess. Hera’s face is stern, one hand wrapped in the reins of her chariot; the other caresses the dove perched on her shoulder, its beak nuzzled into her dark hair. Her golden crown sparkles in the sunset, iridescent like the eyes of a peacock’s tail.

“I don’t know a lot about, like. The gods. And stuff.” She glances at Hamid, an unusually solemn expression pulling at her lips. “Never felt like they cared. So why should I?”

Hamid looks up at the statue as well, remembering the feeling of his goddess’s approval, the weight of the bishop’s hand on his shoulder at his investiture ceremony. 

“Hera is a lot of things to a lot of people,” he says. “She’s the goddess of sovereignty, really. Family. Marriage. Hospitality.” He fingers the ribbon wrapped around his wrist and smiles. “Sacred bonds, and the power to protect them.”

“Family, huh?” murmurs Sasha. She stands a moment longer, the cooling night breeze whipping her short hair into spikes around her unreadable face. 

Finally, she makes an awkward half-bow to the statue, and turns to follow Hamid into the temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, we finally, FINALLY end the prologue! next will be a brief (one or two chapters) interlude, getting our pieces set up for the paris arc...


	8. hamid

Hamid’s earliest memories are of the strained, falling call to prayer drifting over the city evening. Saira used to hold his hand, helping him toddle into the central atrium of the house to kneel in front of the altar. Sometimes he would fall asleep on her shoulder, but more often he did his best to stay awake and pay attention, squinting at his father and wrinkling his nose as the incense tickled it. Father would say the prayers first to Hestia, so she could carry the rest of it up to the other gods, and then to Apollon-Harakte who drives the sun barge and Hapi who makes the river flood. Then it was Mother’s turn, and she would sing the chants to Hera and Hamid tried his best to sing the right responses. He always felt very proud of himself when he did, as if he’d done a good job for their family’s patron.

He thinks it was probably a long time coming on slowly, the quiet conviction of his god’s touch on his heart, but if people were to ask he would say it was the surgery when he realized. He remembers lying in the recovery bed in the temple of Aphrodite, staring in awe and gratitude at the scars, and he remembers the brightness of the healers bustling around him checking that everything went okay and talking to his parents and talking to him, and under the overwhelming relief and euphoria something _solidified_.

He spent the week after that getting used to feeling comfortable in his body, and then his mother found him in the atrium late at night with incense burning.

“Hamid, honey, are you alright? Is your chest hurting?”

“No,” he said dreamily. “I’m just-- praying.”

She knelt beside him, a hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into her a little, feeling his curly hair brush against her arm. They stared at the statue of Hera, standing with her scepter in one hand and the other outstretched in blessing, a prideful smile stretched across her lips. Her face wavered a little in the smoke.

“Mother,” said Hamid, and he wasn’t entirely sure which one he was talking to. “I want-- to help people. I think I want to be a healer. Is that--?”

His mother squeezed his shoulder.

“I don’t think I could be prouder of a son who wanted to spend his life that way,” she said. The smoke wavered on Hera’s face, so that the stern smile softened into something warm and kind.

 

So Hamid went to a temple rather than to university, and instead of magic he learned healing and diplomacy, and the evening call for prayer came now from the temple bells, not the minarets of Cairo, but he still knelt in the warm red light of sunset and sang the chants to Hera, and felt the certainty in his soul like the gentle fluttering of a rock dove.

 

He cried at his investiture ceremony. A lot. Mostly that was because of the bone-deep rightness, because of the subsuming sense of love and pride and devotion that made him gasp-- he’d never felt Hera with him this close, this strong, this fierce-- but also a lot of it was because his family came for it, and traveling with a big family is enough of a hassle that he hadn’t seen them all together in the entire five years he’d been gone; just scattered visits mostly from Aziza, who traveled a lot anyway, or Mother, who despised writing letters with a slightly pitiful fervor. Father was so consistently busy that Hamid was worried that he wouldn’t come-- but he did, and Saleh, who hated traveling as much as Mother hated writing, crushed him in a giant hug and announced “Hamid! Is it really you? I didn’t even recognize you! You’re so _tall_ and _confident_ and-- and-- _pretty_ \--”

“Thanks,” said Hamid drily, detaching himself with difficulty and smoothing his blue silk robes down. “Good to know you don’t remember your own brother being pretty.”

Saleh flapped a hand vaguely. “You know what i meant.”

“Hm. Sure.”

“Oh my gods, you two,” said Saira, who was 24 and still under the thrall of her cool-teenager complex. “Just cry on each other and get it _over_ with.”

The twins, who had been only six or seven when Hamid left, seemed very awed by this blue-robed, ethereal being that was claiming to be their brother, and took the duty of giving him the family’s investiture gifts extremely seriously. The temple issued his armor, bleached white and with gilded trim, and the royal blue robes to go under it and the deep green and gold cloak to go over it-- but his family gave him the slender glaive that fits his hand like his own fingers, and the cow-horn sistrum that hangs from his belt.

The first person Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan blessed as a full cleric of Hera was his father, awkwardly stiff and with suspiciously wet eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the cultural process of religious syncretism is one of my most weirdly specific Fascinations and you'd be surprised by how much yelling I did about this chapter along the lines of "BUT HOW WOULD THIS ACTUALLY _WORK_ WHEN IN THE INTERPRETATIO GRAECA HERA IS ASSOCIATED WITH HATHOR ISIS _AND_ SATHIT" "emma please calm down" "I WILL NOT CALM DOWN"  
> (basically, the fact that Egyptian mythology does not map to greek mythology _at all_ , and that this did not stop the irl greeks AT ALL, should have been taken into account by alexander j newall when creating the world for his dnd campaign. in this essay I will)


	9. interlude i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which secrets are shared, names are discussed, and a new player saunters onto the game board. Sasha is unimpressed.

Sasha comes out of the bathroom with a threadbare dressing gown tossed haphazardly over her combinations, toweling her hair. 

“Are either of you gonna take a bath? The water’s still hot.”

“You can go, Zolf,” says Hamid, who is on the floor, digging through one of his trunks. “I’d like to finish this first. Sasha, can I borrow your clothes press?”

She blinks at him. “What’s a clothes press?”

“You don’t have a  _ clothes press _ ?!”

Zolf stifles a snigger at the sheer horror in Hamid’s tone. Sasha takes the towel off her head— her damp hair is so spiky now that it’s pointing straight up from her scalp— and wraps it around her shoulders with a shrug. 

“It’s one of those things to make your clothes look super nice, right? I don’t usually bother, so. I uh, I used to know someone who was really keen on that sort of thing but she always got frustrated and just did my stuff herself if she wanted it done ‘cause I didn’t care.”

“You  _ should  _ care,” Hamid fusses. “How are people going to take you seriously if—”

Sasha’s eyes narrow a little. 

“You don’t have to sleep in my house,” she says. “If you’ve got such a problem with the way I do things.”

“Leave it, Hamid,” says Zolf. “It’s way too late to be fighting.” 

Hamid makes a displeased noise. 

“I’m just trying to—”

“Hamid. Stop.”

“But—”

“Go take your goddamn bath, Hamid.”

Hamid says something spiteful-sounding in Arabic and slams his trunk shut. The effect is slightly spoiled when he then has to open it again to fish out his pajamas and a hairbrush. Zolf ignores him. 

“Sasha, have you eaten yet? I made dinner while you were bathing.”

She hunches her shoulders up around her ears.

“Sure,” she says, voice still a little scratchy with frustration. “Uh, I didn’t have a ton of stuff in the pantry, what did you...”

“It’s mostly potato and carrot, honestly. Sorry about using up your food. We can get more tomorrow.”

“‘S no problem,” Sasha mutters. “It sounds— good. I was just gonna have some bread, so.”

Gods. No wonder she’s so skinny. 

 

Hamid is back to his usual sunny self when he comes out of the washroom, and Sasha is curled sleepily on the couch full of soup, and Zolf has finished mending his torn sock. It’s coming on close to midnight, a comfortable silence stretching over Sasha’s tiny living room. 

“So, what are we doing tomorrow?” Hamid asks. 

Zolf says, “Harringay asked if we could come back to talk about that notebook we found, so I suppose we’ve got that appointment.” Sasha stirs on the couch.

“I wanna get that ring looked at,” she says. “I know someone who can look at it. Make sure it’s not— make sure whatever curse is on it is, is something we can handle.”

“Ring? Oh, yes.” Zolf looks down at his little finger, the thin, innocuous band of gold jammed past his first knuckle. Idly, he tries to wiggle it off. It doesn’t wiggle off. It  _ could  _ just be stuck, but he doubts it. “Yeah, not my... not my smartest decision, I think. But it’s done now.”

“How are you so  _ calm  _ about this?” Sasha demands. “You fucking— you got yourself hooked to a crime boss who probably knows everything we’re saying right now!” 

“He might not ever contact us again,” Hamid says hopefully. “We’re not  _ that  _ good at this job yet.”

“ _ Yet _ . You don’t even know what he’s going to ask us to do!” If Sasha were a cat, her tail would probably be swishing angrily behind her. She’s sat up on the couch now, with her nails digging into her palms.

“Neither do you,” Hamid points out.

“I know it won’t be  _ good _ ! Gods! I’m not worth this! You’re both fucking idiots, you know that, right?”

“Of course you’re worth it,” says Zolf. “Of course you are, Sasha.”

“You don’t even  _ know  _ me,” she hisses. “You don’t know me, and you don’t know Barrett, and you’re  _ stupid—  _ you’re so stupid...”

“I know you didn’t want to go back,” says Zolf, trying to stay calm, trying not to let his own agitation feed into hers. “I wasn’t going to just let him take you when you were so  _ scared  _ of him,  _ no one  _ deserves that.”

“You’ve never dealt with these sorts of people, Zolf, I  _ have  _ and I’m telling you he doesn’t let go of things that easily there’s always a  _ catch _ !”

“Sasha—”

“Don’t touch me!” she cries. He stops, hands hovering above her shoulders where he’d reached out. She’s shaking, and sparking, and there are tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’ve been a hostage before,” she whispers. “I don’t  _ like  _ it. I  _ don’t like it _ . I don’t want— You don’t deserve this. Being— being chained to me like this. Don’t make me be a chain.”

“You’re not a—” begins Hamid soothingly, but Zolf makes a dissenting noise as he crouches in front of Sasha, looking carefully at her nose instead of making eye contact. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re right. I made a bad deal. I wasn’t thinking about the details. That’s— that’s on me. I’m sorry. But I don’t regret it, okay?”

She sniffs quietly. 

“We’re a team now, Sasha,” he says. “That means we take care of each other. And if someone’s past comes calling, we’ll take care of it, together. Deal?”

“How are you  _ real _ ?” she says, and it sort of sounds like it’s trying to be sarcastic, but she can’t quite manage it through the tears. “You’re both— so stupid.”

“I never claimed to be smart,” Zolf says drily, and it pulls a thin laugh from her.

“Right.”

Hamid moves to her leg, arms open, a clear invitation, a clear question. She nods— wordless— and sinks down clumsily into his hug. 

“‘m sorry about yelling,” she mutters. 

“Don’t be,” says Hamid. “We screwed up. You know, it’s okay to.... to feel emotions and things. You  _ do  _ know that, right?”

Sasha snorts.

“How are you still this annoying even when you’re being  _ nice _ ?”

“I have lots of siblings,” says Hamid. “It comes with the territory.”

Zolf pats her hand a little awkwardly as she pulls away. 

“There’s something I was meaning to tell you,” she says hesitantly. “Before— before we started, like. Fighting. And things. He— he said something—”

“Sasha, you don’t have to—”

“No! You need— you should know. This.” She takes a deep breath. “My magic. You keep— you thought I was a wizard. And I’m... I’m not. A wizard.”

Zolf blinks. He supposes that’s not surprising— Sasha doesn’t strike him as someone who would put years into formal schooling— but what other kinds of magic are there? Divine? She doesn’t seem like a gods person either— bardic magic takes schooling as well—

“I’m something called a sorcerer,” says Sasha, like every word is being squeezed out of her throat. “My magic is— part of me, it comes from my blood, I can’t— I’ve been trying to learn to control it but it just  _ happens _ .”

There’s silence. Zolf doesn’t even know what a sorcerer  _ is _ , but from the look on Hamid’s face it’s not a good thing.

“Aren’t—” Hamid clears his throat. “Aren’t sorcerers really, really rare?”

Sasha has her arms wrapped firmly around her chest, fingers digging into the meager flesh of her sides. “I’m— the first one, known one, in about a hundred years.” It sounds like a recitation. 

“So your magic works differently than a norm— than a wizard’s magic?” Zolf clarifies.

Sasha nods, looking miserable.

“That’s all,” says Zolf gently, “we really need to know to work together, Sasha. Thank you for trusting us with this.”

She sighs as though it’s been punched out of her stomach. 

“He made me learn,” and it spills out of her in a desperate stream; “he made me learn to do it on purpose and I  _ hurt  _ people, I hurt the people he told me to hurt and made a, made a door to put everything behind and then I  _ locked  _ it and told them the magic was gone and I wasn’t— but I used it again and now he knows I, I, I could be  _ useful  _ again, he didn’t care as long as I couldn’t be useful but— but.” She buries her face in her hands. “I don’t remember how to not use it anymore.” Her voice is muffled. “I don’t think I can lock the door again.”

“Do you want to?” asks Hamid.

Sasha makes a soft noise, a sob on an inhale, a breathy half-laugh. Gives a minute shake of her head.

“If I have to use it—” she starts, and stops. Wets her lips, and holds out her hand, and slowly lets lightning gather in her palm. It crackles around her fingers. Lights up her face in blue and white.

“Barrett wanted me to be a weapon,” she says quietly. “I’d rather use this for  _ me _ .”

* * *

Harringay looks about as uncomfortable as Sasha feels, and a good deal more nervous. There’s something about this tall woman, with her perfect hair and shiny epaulettes and immobile face, that’s putting Sasha on edge, but she tries to channel it into her normal low-level generalized frustration at Rich People, which helps the nervousness quite a bit. She’s not sure how to convey this advice to Harringay, though, and not sure how helpful it will be to him. It’s not  _ her  _ office that’s gotten— commandeered? taken over by a self-proclaimed Head Of The Meritocratic Forces who’s currently negotiating with Zolf about that fucking notebook. Sasha’s starting to get pretty sick of hearing about that fucking notebook.

“—looked through it briefly,” Zolf is saying now, “and it seems that we can find a few leads to follow, but we’d need to look at it again.”

“It must remain in Meritocratic custody,” says Lady Starling. “We cannot risk—”

Sasha digs in her pocket for some bits of wire and starts twisting them together into a little person-shaped figure with rounded feet and spiky hair, like a star, sort of. She can’t figure out how to make the hand be flipping someone off without messing up the proportions.

“—look through it here, if you don’t mind,” Hamid says off in the corner. Harringay crunches glumly on one of his newly-restocked desk mints.

Ah! There we go. A little loop of wire makes an admirable middle finger. Sasha balances the wire person on the desk and carefully raises its other arm so it’s waving at Harringay.

“Before the contract is finalized,” Lady Starling is saying, “we shall need to clarify a few things for the paperwork. Does your— group have a name?”

Zolf clears his throat. “If you would excuse me for a moment, ma’am?” He turns around, yanks Hamid over in a small huddle, and gestures Sasha over to join them.

“We don’t have a name,” Sasha says obviously. “We need a name? No one said anything about a name. What’s our name?”

“I don’t know how to name a company,” Zolf hisses. 

“Neither do I, I didn’t change the name when I got my shop.”

They both look at Hamid, who shrugs awkwardly. “Ours is just The Tahan Bank,” he confesses. 

“Okay,” says Zolf. “Okay we can can work with that. Uh. Smith? Smith’s...”

“Smith’s....” says Sasha.

“Smith’s.... Mercenaries.... For Hire,” says Hamid. They all blink at each other.

“That’s awful,” says Sasha. “Doesn’t Mercenaries already mean we’re for hire?”

Zolf snaps his fingers. “Abbreviation,” he says suddenly, and pops his head back up.

Lady Starling raises her eyebrow at him.

“Well?” she says. Zolf beams proudly.

“Put  _ SMFH _ ,” he tells her.

 

“Okay,” says Sasha. “So, what are we actually doing? I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Hamid rolls his eyes.

“Lady Starling hired us on behalf of the Meritocratic forces to try to track down and reconstruct any information about the Simulacrum, so they can stop it from falling into the wrong hands.”

“I got  _ that  _ bit.”

“Honestly, that was the only important bit,” says Zolf. “I hate government high-ups. They love the sound of their own voices  _ so goddamn much _ .” 

Hamid giggles.

“You think that was bad? She actually said words that had  _ meaning _ . My dad works with people that can talk for three hours and not actually say  _ anything _ .”

Zolf groans. 

“Hamid, please tell me you have the list of leads she let you make.”

Hamid nods, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. His handwriting is very neat and so tiny Sasha can’t read it from here, which is annoying because she’s always been quite proud of her ability to read upside down.

“We should probably go back to Sasha’s place to actually talk about it in depth, but there are six things I think are worth looking into.”

“That weird seed thing?” Sasha asks. Hamid holds up a finger, starting a count.

“Yes. That’s one. Two is this shard of metal, which we are  _ temporarily borrowing  _ for the purposes of  _ identification  _ so we have to be very very careful with it. Sasha, you said you know someone who might know about it?”

“Yeah.” She  _ had  _ been paying attention to that bit, head snapping over to an Interesting Mechanics Thing like a dog catching a scent.

“Good, that’s that sorted. Um, third and fourth are the paper crane and the deposit key. I’m pretty sure I can find someone at the bank to identify that one so we’ve got it too. And the last two aren’t things, they’re places. The journal talked about meeting someone called Francois Henri in Paris, and about someone’s office at Charles University in Prague.”

“So we’ll try to identify the metal and the key today, and then go from there,” Zolf summarizes. 

Sasha is chewing on her lip. 

“I’d like to... to go to Paris,” she says. “At some point.”

Hamid remembers Barrett saying  _ he’s very happy  _ and reaches up to pat Sasha’s arm. “Even if we didn’t have the contract up we’d go to Paris for you, Sasha,” he says. “We’ll help you find your— your friend?”

She puts a finger to her lips.

“Not out here,” she says gently. “I don’t want— Let’s not talk about it here.”

“Okay,” says Zolf. “Should we split up? Hamid take the key to the bank, and Sasha take the metal to your— contact?”

“Zolf, I want you to come with me,” says Sasha. “I want him to look at that fucking ring. I don’t trust it and I want to make sure it’s not going to—  _ kill  _ you or  _ control  _ you or something.”

“I don’t think it—”

“Do you know anything about magic?” Sasha demands. “Let Bi Ming look at that ring or I’ll cut the finger off myself. I’ve done it before.”

Zolf goes a little red.

“That’s  _ not  _ necessary.”

“You don’t  _ need  _ all your fingers.”

He thinks she might be joking. He really hopes she’s joking.

“You’ve made your point.”

She folds her arms, looking smug on top of the faintly ill expression she gets every time she talks about Barrett.

“C’mon,” says Hamid, pushing at Zolf’s solid bulk ineffectually. “Walk and talk.” 

They turn up back at Sasha’s flat just before noon, and as they make their way up the stairs Sasha freezes suddenly. Her arm goes out, flinging itself across Zolf’s— well, it would have been his chest, if he were human, but instead her boney elbow clips his nose and he grunts in pain.

“Shhh!” Sasha whispers, hardly louder than a breath. Lightning is starting to pool in her palm. 

“Sasha, what’s—”

“ _ Shh! _ ”

She’s mouthing  _ fuck fuck fuck  _ as she turns to them. 

— **Someone here** , she signs, slowly and deliberately, with her fingers sparking in the dim light of the staircase.  **Inside** .

Hamid, who doesn’t know sign, is squinting at her with a rising panic in the tight line of his mouth— something’s wrong, he must be able to tell that at least. Zolf swallows.

**Who?** he signs back, clumsily, hoping it’s the right one. He really needs to actually learn BSL at some point. 

Sasha shrugs. Zolf pulls out his sword.

Hamid makes a silent  _ ah  _ face and shifts his stance.

Sasha carefully, so carefully, slides her key into the lock— and in one single motion she’s turned it and thrown the door open and shouted, “Who the  _ fuck  _ are you and why are you in my house?”

There is a beat of silence. Then:

“Welcome home!” says a voice that is, in Zolf’s opinion,  _ far  _ too cheerful given the circumstances.

There’s a man lounging on Sasha’s couch, feet up on the arm, a book in one hand, and an insufferably smug expression on his unfortunately handsome face. 

A bolt of lightning streaks from Sasha’s finger directly toward that face. The man’s expression doesn’t change in the slightest as he dodges sideways and out of the way. The lightning hits the back of the couch, leaving a curling, fern-like scorchmark. 

“Starling was right. You folk are feisty,” says the man calmly. 

“You have three seconds,” Sasha growls. “One. Two.”

“Wait a second,” says Hamid, voice a little raspy with adrenaline. “Are— are you supposed to be the Meritocratic contact from Lady Starling?” 

“Aren’t Meritocratic agents supposed to be  _ smart _ ?” says Zolf, who still has his sword up. “Because breaking into the personal home of a mage isn’t a terribly smart decision.”

Sasha is shaking with anger. 

“I  _ said who are you _ ,” she grinds out past her teeth. “Why are you here, and how did you get past the traps?”

“The  _ traps _ ?” Hamid squeaks. “I didn’t know you had traps!”

“I disabled them for you guys,” she says in a clipped tone, eyes still fixed on the intruder. There’s more lightning growing on her hand, sizzling and crackling agitatedly. 

“To be fair,” says the intruder. “They were very good traps. The acid one almost got me. Ruined my shirtsleeve, I’ll have you know.”

“That doesn’t tell me why you’re here.”

“To introduce myself,” says the intruder, far too calmly, still with that shit-eating grin. “Hello, Miss Rackett. I’m Oscar Wilde, journalist and writer _and_ your currently assigned Meritocratic contact.”

Sasha looks him in the eye, kicks her heel deliberately on the ground, and lets ice crackle around his feet. Oscar Wilde’s face finally shifts, looking a little confused for a moment as he tries to move and can’t.

“Number one,” says Sasha, her voice at least ten degrees colder than the suddenly chilly air of the room. “If you ever fucking call me Miss Rackett again I will burn your face  _ off _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good dads respect and validate ur concerns thanks for coming to my ted talk

**Author's Note:**

> NEW: I posted sasha's character sheet [here](https://hinotorihime.tumblr.com/post/189195019650/sasha-rackett-sorcerer-1) on my tumblr-- check it out if you want some slightly-too-in-depth rambling about the mechanics of fourth edition!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [theseus' ship](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410975) by [roswyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm)




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